Backup dir with space, quoting and shell command

[shodanshok]

Hi all,
I would like to stress a discrepancy between the command output by rsnapshot -t and the real rsync command executed when a backup dir contain spaces. Let say I have a directory called "fileserver test".

On 1.3.1 I would put a similar line to rsnapshot.conf:
backup "root@localhost:/opt/fileserver\ test/" fileserver/
The output from rsnapshot -t daily would be:

[root@centos-webdev opt]# rsnapshot -t daily
echo 11032 > /var/run/rsnapshot.pid
/bin/rm -rf /.snapshots/daily.6/
mv /.snapshots/daily.5/ /.snapshots/daily.6/
mv /.snapshots/daily.4/ /.snapshots/daily.5/
mv /.snapshots/daily.3/ /.snapshots/daily.4/
mv /.snapshots/daily.2/ /.snapshots/daily.3/
mv /.snapshots/daily.1/ /.snapshots/daily.2/
mv /.snapshots/daily.0/ /.snapshots/daily.1/
/usr/bin/rsync -aA --delete --numeric-ids --relative --delete-excluded \
    --rsh=/usr/bin/ssh --link-dest=/.snapshots/daily.1/fileserver/ \
    "root@localhost:/opt/fileserver\ test/" /.snapshots/daily.0/fileserver/
touch /.snapshots/daily.0/

If I grab the rsync command and I execute it, it works without problem.

On 1.4.2, my rsnapshot.conf line look like this:
backup root@localhost:/opt/fileserver\ test fileserver/
The output from rsnapshot -t daily would be:

[root@centos-webdev opt]# rsnapshot -t daily
echo 11111 > /var/run/rsnapshot.pid
/bin/rm -rf /.snapshots/daily.6/
mv /.snapshots/daily.5/ /.snapshots/daily.6/
mv /.snapshots/daily.4/ /.snapshots/daily.5/
mv /.snapshots/daily.3/ /.snapshots/daily.4/
mv /.snapshots/daily.2/ /.snapshots/daily.3/
mv /.snapshots/daily.1/ /.snapshots/daily.2/
mv /.snapshots/daily.0/ /.snapshots/daily.1/
/usr/bin/rsync -aA --delete --numeric-ids --relative --delete-excluded \
    --rsh=/usr/bin/ssh --link-dest=/.snapshots/daily.1/fileserver/ \
    root@localhost:/opt/fileserver\ test/ /.snapshots/daily.0/fileserver/
touch /.snapshots/daily.0/

If I again grab the rsync command and I execute it, it obviously does not work in shell, due to missing quotes.

I completely understand and really appreciate the change to use a params array (rather than a shell) to launch rsync from rsnapshot (too much thing can go wrong with shell quoting), however right now rsnapshot -t output is confusing, as you need to re-quote it correctly to launch it from shell.

I also think that the change in backup directive format (no direct quoting needed) should be clearly stressed in the docs, as a direct update from 1.3.1 to 1.4.2 can result a not-working configuration (which is trivial to correct, by the way).

Thanks.

[jdholtz]

I am getting a similar issue with the snapshot_root containing a space. Here are the relevant logs:

/usr/bin/rsync -a --delete --numeric-ids --relative --delete-excluded --filter=-/_/mnt/backups/Spaced Directory/Backups / /mnt/backups/Spaced Directory/Backups/daily.0/localhost/
[2023-11-20T01:00:04] rsync: [sender] link_stat "/mnt/backups/Spaced Directory/Backups/Directory/Backups" failed: No such file or directory (2)